MudLark: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

I wrote this after listening to Katie, who grew up in Juneau, Alaska, complain about the weather here in the flat central valley.

Every morning she woke up, looked outside her window.
There was nothing to see but the blue, blue sky and twenty miles of hedgerow.
The sun came up too early, it went down late at night.
She pined for the mountain’s shadow blocking out the light.

She was a mountain girl (mountain girl) (2x)
She was a mountain girl living in the flatlands.

She could walk for miles and miles; her legs would never tire.
There was nothing to climb that was steep enough to wear out her desire.
“Northern California,” that’s what they called the place.
But it was too far south for the likes of her, too much open space.

She was a mountain girl...

The plains were just as plain as they could be.
The summer sun had baked ‘em hard and dry.
Her heart was like a thirsty desert seed,
But she could cry, she could cry.
Oh, the raven in the north, he was a-listening,
Sittin’ in a cedar way up high.
He spoke an incantation to the mountain,
That she would fly, she would fly.

She was a mountain girl...

She could hear the rumble. The mountain’s voice was deep.
With the hush and the crush of the virgin snow, it called her in her sleep.
When the day came a-knockin’, she tumbled out that door.
She waved good-bye to the big, big sky; she was too heart sore.
She’d be a flatlander no more.

She was a mountain girl...